by K. M. Fawkes
Jack and Vance went still. Vance had stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. Jack took a long sip of his water.
Charlie’s face had gone pale. “Without approval?” she asked.
“Yeah. I mean, what’s the big deal? We all have plenty of free time.” Brad did his best to make it seem like what he was asking was perfectly reasonable.
“There’s no way in hell I’d help you without a direct order from the Major,” Vance said bluntly, putting his fork down.
“Why the hell not?” Brad demanded.
“Look, it’s not like it’s personal,” Jack said, leaning in and speaking low. “It’s just…this stuff has to be approved.”
“It’s kind of hard for me to get an approval on anything when he won’t see me,” Brad argued. “Like I said, I’m not asking you to skip out on work. We’ve all got free time. Why can’t we—”
“Because it has to be approved,” Charlie repeated, using the same emphasis her husband had used. “You can’t do anything without the Major’s approval, Brad. It’s just safer that way.” She glanced around before she said, “For everyone, but especially for you.”
“Why?”
“We don’t want you to end up evicted,” Vance hissed. “And none of us want to get evicted for you. Sorry, man.”
“Evicted?” Brad repeated. This was new. “What does that mean?”
“Not here,” Jack said urgently. “Listen, just suffice to say that we’re safe here and we know better than to make demands.”
Jack took a breath, his eyes darting to the table filled with soldiers. When it didn’t look like they were paying the least bit of attention, he went on, speaking quickly and quietly. Brad had to really focus to untangle the words. “I know that it’s hard to wait, Brad, but you have to. It’ll happen when the time is right, okay? And then I’ll be happy to help. When it’s approved.”
They finished dinner and Charlie, Jack and Vance steered the conversation to more innocuous topics. Brad barely tasted his food after that. He knew that he couldn’t go to the Major tonight. And he couldn’t go looking for Anna and the kids on his own.
As he pushed his food around on his plate and listened to everyone else talking and laughing, his chest suddenly ached. He tried hard to push the memory of their faces away, but they rushed up anyway. Anna’s bright green eyes sparkling with laughter. Sammy’s look of intense concentration as he carved. The way Martha had slowly, shyly begun trusting him.
They were the ones he had a responsibility to, and Brad knew that he’d never forgive himself if he’d wasted too much time here. When he’d cleaned his plate, forcing most of it down his tight throat, he turned in his plate and trudged home, leaving the others to enjoy their dessert without him.
Back at his apartment, even though it wasn’t really late, Brad washed up and got in bed. As he lay there, he turned the others’ words over in his mind. Charlie had been genuinely terrified. Jack and Vance, too.
“Evicted,” he murmured, remembering the look on Jack’s face as he’d said it.
Sure, being evicted wasn’t the best thing in any situation. But when the alternative was freezing to death in a wasteland, that made it even more unappealing. What were the rules for eviction, though? Was it as simple as one infraction and you were gone? Was there a strike system or some kind of hierarchy of offenses? From the others’ reactions, he assumed that one unauthorized field trip was enough to put the unlucky adventurer out on their ass.
And that thought brought him to the next, more serious worry. When a person was evicted, how did they do it? Did the soldiers just remove them from the facility and shut the gates behind them? Did they give them any kind of rations or supplies to take along with them? Did they drive them away and drop them out? Or was there something more sinister at play?
Would Major Walker actually have someone killed? Brad felt like he already knew the answer to that question. Caleb had disappeared completely. Walker hadn’t said that he was evicted, though; he’d simply put out the story that the man was sick. Brad wondered what the difference was.
He groaned in frustration and rolled onto his side. He was thinking in circles and it wasn’t doing him a damn bit of good. He could wonder all night long and not get any closer to the truth. And it looked like no one was going to tell him, either. It was time to move on to things that he had the power and the know-how to change.
Like his own movements. Walker couldn’t control Brad. The weather could make his life out in the open a living hell, but if this warm front persisted, he’d be able to get far enough away to reach a highway in a few days. He could find shelter. And if he raided the supply room first, he could ward off starvation. His ankle, now fully healed, was no longer something that could slow him down or risk getting infected.
Or what if he wasn’t sneaky about it at all? What would happen if he simply walked into that office tomorrow morning and told them all that he’d decided to go? Would they just let him leave or would they refuse? Or would they track him down after pretending to allow him to leave? They had vehicles and he wouldn’t, so they’d be faster. At least on foot he’d be able to go places that the trucks wouldn’t be able to access.
He chewed his lower lip, debating. He could probably get away from them pretty easily. He’d been looking at the land around the facility every day, now. There was a section of woods very close. He could hide in there with pretty much no problem.
“And do what?” he muttered to himself, flopping back over to lie on his back.
He draped his arm over his eyes and ordered himself to think logically. He needed to imagine the worst-case scenarios along with the best-case ones. It was warm today, but that front wouldn’t last long. It was shaping up to be a long, cold winter, and hunting was scarce as it was, even with a team of guys.
Even if he’d been confident that he could hunt enough game to get by, there were other issues. Namely, he didn’t have the gear to survive. The tent wasn’t enough to protect him from cold like they’d had so far.
And, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t keep counting on finding cars to sleep in. Even his plan of getting to a highway was pretty dumb on closer inspection. The closest highway ran straight into Bangor. And Bangor was…hell. It was basically gone.
In the best-case scenario, supply-wise, he still didn’t want to go back into that city. He didn’t know what kind of turf war was going on in those streets, but he knew for damn sure that he didn’t want to be in it. It had hurt him much more deeply than he’d imagined to see the city he’d grown up in turned to ruins like that.
Everything significant in his entire life had happened in Bangor. He’d gone to his first dance there. It had been painfully awkward, but still. He’d had his first kiss in the park. That too had been painfully awkward.
Brad sighed. The Venn diagram of significant and awkward events in his life might have been a circle, but the point was, he missed his hometown.
He could only hope that Anna didn’t go there. She’d wanted to go to a city and Bangor was the closest, biggest one to the cabin. But surely even determined Anna would have turned back when she saw what it had become. Unless she’d gotten there before it all started and was now trapped in it.
He rolled onto his side again. Maybe he should go to Bangor. Or maybe he needed to check the woods. Or maybe he needed to admit the goddamn truth.
“I don’t know where to look,” he whispered into the darkness.
His throat went tight at the obvious answer. He didn’t have a choice. He had to stay where he was. And he clearly needed to stay quiet. Whatever being evicted truly meant, he couldn’t afford to find out.
Chapter 17
Despite his decision of the night before, it wasn’t easy for Brad to be quiet and just get along. Not when he could see more and more issues every minute.
Vance had been avoiding him all day. He hadn’t seen much of Jack either, but that was because one of the trucks had broken down. Apparently it wasn’t an easy fix and it was ma
king a lot of extra work for him.
Or were they being kept apart? Neal had seen them all sitting together at Thanksgiving. There had been plenty of times when they were all huddled close together in conversation. Had he pointed those little talks out to the Major?
You’re getting paranoid, he chastised himself, even as he got bundled up for his plan. He hadn’t had much time to simply walk around the place by himself and he liked the quiet. At least, that was going to be his excuse if he was caught. In reality, he was going to do his best to work out a way to steal one of the trucks that Jack kept in such good working order.
The small amount of sleep he’d managed to get the night before had helped solidify Brad’s plan. If he wanted to survive in Bangor, he’d need the ability to make a quick getaway. Having a vehicle was the best way to accomplish that. It would also make searching for Anna, Sammy, and Martha much faster and hopefully much easier. He’d wasted far too much time already.
Ice crunched under his boots as he walked. The warm front hadn’t lasted long at all. He was glad that he hadn’t been counting on it.
He took care to avoid being seen wandering around so early in the morning, so far away from his assigned duties with the animals. He gave a wide berth to the areas where he knew the soldiers were posted.
He was glad that the deluge of winter rain had hardened into ice, at least for now. It would be inconvenient when he started driving, but he’d worry about it when the time came. For now, he was just grateful that he wouldn’t leave tracks.
He went into the area where the trucks were parked and began looking around, finding nothing but additional problems and stumbling blocks to his plans, despite the fact that his biggest worry—which was that he was going to run into Jack—was unfounded. They must have taken the truck he was working on and parked it somewhere different.
Sighing as he surveyed the fleet of vehicles, Brad had to admit that this was probably where he would have parked them as well. There was no obvious way to get a vehicle out of here without alerting the whole damn complex. He’d have to drive right past all of the apartments from here, along with the Major’s office.
He pushed his hand through his hair and sighed. Plan A was officially down the drain for the moment. He’d just have to hope his subconscious would come up with something good.
As he wandered aimlessly back around, trying to think without forcing himself to think lest he frighten the ideas away, he saw the hole in the fencing. He stopped in his tracks, staring at it for a moment. He’d completely forgotten to report that breach and he’d certainly forgotten to patch it.
He’d signed for the completed inspection using Jack’s initials, which meant that if the major found out about the hole, it wouldn’t be Brad’s ass on the line. It would be his friend’s. As much as he didn’t want to talk to the soldiers, he probably needed to. Whatever the punishment would be, he didn’t want it falling to Jack.
He started to turn and head to the office, but then he stopped, glancing around. No one was watching, and he really needed to explore the surrounding area a bit more. If things went sour and he ended up with no choice but to leave on foot, he’d need to know where he was going.
He walked up to the hole and measured it with his eyes. It wasn’t big, but he could probably squeeze through. With another look over both shoulders, Brad took the chance, pushing himself through the small hole as quickly as he could without ripping his clothes.
There wasn’t much of interest on the other side, just an expanse of field and some trees that had been planted around the complex in better times. Planting trees next to a forest seemed like overkill to Brad, but who was he to judge. Maybe the director of this place had known something about elderly people that he didn’t. Maybe they really, really, loved trees.
He wandered mostly aimlessly, making sure to stay in the shadows. He was concentrating so hard on not being seen that he nearly fell headfirst into the huge pit that had been dug out just inside the tree line of the actual forest. Standing on the edge, waving his arms for balance, he eventually managed to teeter back onto solid ground.
“What the hell?” he muttered, gazing into the darkness.
It wouldn’t have killed him to fall into the hole, but he certainly could have broken a limb or two. Why was the damn thing even there? Brad knelt at the edge and looked down into the pit even more closely. There were tin cans and all kinds of other debris down there. So, this was their dump site.
He’d wondered what they did with their trash, but it was always the soldiers who were assigned to trash duty. Which was rather odd, now that he thought about it. Why wouldn’t the soldiers make a civilian do the dirty work? Maybe it was the Major’s way of keeping the civilians happy, of proving to them that everyone had to do some dirty jobs.
It didn’t really seem like something that the Major would do, but it was the best explanation Brad could think of. As he started to stand up again, a scrap of red fabric caught his eye and he leaned closer. What kind of a moron threw away fabric? His closer look told him it was a shirt; he could see the cuff at the end of the sleeve. He rolled his eyes, but then he realized something.
Gauging the distance, confirming that he would be able to get back up if he went down, Brad slid down the side of the pit. Who knew what people had thrown away in the early days? If he could gather a fair amount of supplies from the trash pit, he could stockpile them deeper in the woods and no one would ever know.
He walked over to the spot of red and tugged on it, expecting a shirt to come free. Instead, a human arm popped up from the sludge of leftover snow, ice, and dirt. Brad bit back a shout and stumbled backward, slipping and sliding. The arm lay still on the ground. Obviously. The skin was gray. Whoever the arm belonged to had clearly been there for a while.
He caught his breath, leaning over, pressing his hands to his knees. He wanted to keep the body in sight just as much as he didn’t want to look at it. Had someone stumbled into the pit and then not been able to get out, he wondered. Brad shook his head, refuting his own theory. No. The pit was deep, but it wasn’t that deep. Anyone could have dug some hand and footholds into the sidewalls if they couldn’t manage the climb up on their own.
He stepped back and nearly tripped again. Looking down, he saw that he’d stumbled over a foot in a shoe. As he stood there, cold with horror, he noticed more and more pieces of clothing…and the bodies within them. Another shoe lay further to his left. There were more shirts scattered around, as well. One of them was a floral-print blouse.
This wasn’t a garbage dump. This was a mass grave.
He had scaled the wall of the pit before he’d even stopped to think about moving. He stayed on his hands and knees at the top, legs suddenly too weak to carry him, gulping in huge breaths of cold air as he tried his best not to gag.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the gold glint of bullet casings on the ground around him. The dirt underneath him would have long ago absorbed the blood of the victims, but he would have sworn that he could smell it, coppery and strong in the air around him. He fought down another wave of nausea.
He didn’t need any confirmation to know that the bodies were those of the facility’s former residents. That much was crystal clear, and it explained the age range in the facility. Everyone was able-bodied and unlikely to have health issues. A physically perfect group of people.
But he wanted confirmation, anyway. He wanted to make them admit what they’d done. He wanted to make them own up to the atrocities they’d committed in name of convenience. Anger flooded in and burned away the disgust. It had been a goddamned old folks’ home! Who the hell had herded these elderly people out here and slaughtered them this way?
The answer was obvious. Brad stood up and headed back to the complex. This time, he didn’t give a damn whether he was seen or not. Anger had eclipsed everything. None of his plans mattered to him at the moment. It was time for him to see the Major. He walked up to HQ and brushed past the soldier, reaching for the door.
&n
bsp; “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the soldier demanded, pulling him back. “Major Walker isn’t—”
“Then why are you guarding the door?” Brad demanded, yanking his arm free of the other man’s grasp with a quick move.
“It doesn’t matter. I said you can’t go in.”
“Then fucking shoot me,” Brad said. “Because that’s the only way you’re going to stop me from saying what I came to say.”
The soldier wavered. Seizing the opportunity, Brad shoved open the door and strode through the front room, into the cozy inner office. Major Walker was exactly where he’d been the first time Brad saw him, sitting at his desk near the window. The only difference was that this time, nearly every soldier in the place was with him. None of them looked thrilled with the fact that Brad had burst through the door. A good number of them raised their guns. Brad stayed right where he was, looking directly at Major Walker.
“I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks,” he said. “I’m pretty sure these guys aren’t passing on my messages.”
Walker smiled and waved a hand at the soldiers. “Put those down,” he told them, eyeing Brad. “You’re not armed, are you?”
“No,” Brad said. “I’ve played by your rules, Walker. You’re the one who’s been lying.”
The uniform look of shock on the soldiers’ faces would have been funny in different circumstances. Brad could tell that what he’d said was unheard of. A look of fury passed over the Major’s face before he got it under control. Brad didn’t care. His own anger was far from in check.
“Say what you’ve come to say,” Major Walker ordered.
“I found the grave,” Brad said flatly. “You’ve got three seconds to tell me the truth about it.”
Walker smiled and poured himself a small portion of whiskey. As he swirled it around in his glass, he said, “Do you want to have a seat?”
